Sandwich panels consisting of a highly porous aluminium foam core and aluminium alloy face sheets are manufactured by roll‐bonding aluminium alloy sheets to a densified mixture of metal powders – usually Al‐Si or Al‐Si‐Cu alloys with 6–8% Si and 3–10% Cu – and titanium hydride, and foaming the resulting three‐layer structure by a thermal treatment. We review the various processing steps of aluminium foam sandwich (AFS) and the metallurgical processes during foaming, compare the process to alternative ways to manufacture AFS, e.g. by adhesive bonding, and give an overview of the available literature. Two ways to treat AFS after foaming are presented, namely forging and age‐hardening. Some current and potential applications are described and the market potential of AFS is assessed.

We review the status of aluminum foam sandwich (AFS) technology and discuss both recent improvements of foaming technology and current application strategies. It is concluded that the quality of foams has improved in the past years but the costs are still very much the same. This is why applications in which metal foams have more than one function are more likely to be economically viable. The examples presented include electromagnetic shielding, carrier plates for mirrors, cooking equipment, architectural panels, and blast protection. 1082 wileyonlinelibrary.com ß

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A novel production process for aluminium foam sandwich panels (AFS) is described. As an example for a serial application of AFS a support for a mobile telescope arm on a small lorry is presented and discussed.

Much work has been done to find commercially efficient applications for metal foams produced using the powder metallurgical route. Most of these efforts have not been successful, because foam quality could not be reproduced reliably and production methods were too inefficient. This article describes the conditions under which aluminum foam sandwich parts may be put into series production in an economical way.

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